NYMPHAE

the name of a numerous class of inferior female divinities,
though they are designated by the title of Olympian, are called
to the meetings of the gods in Olympus, and described as the
daughters of Zeus. But they were believed
to dwell on earth in groves, on the summits of mountains, in
rivers, streams, glens, and grottoes.

Various Groups of Nymphs

Cabeirian: the daughters of Camillus. The Cabeiri are mystic divinities who occur in
various parts of the ancient world

Dodonides: from Dodon, a son of
Zeus by Europa,
from whom the oracle of Dodona was believed to have derived its
name. The nurses appointed by Zeus to bring up Dionysus.

Hespirides or Atlantides: The Hespirides were the nymphs who guarded the
Tree of the Golden Apples.

Hyades: When Lycurgus threatened the safety of Dionysus the Hyades
fled with the infant god to Thetis or
to Thebes, where they entrusted him to
Ino (or Juno), and Zeus showed his
gratitude by placing them among the stars.

Lamusides: the nymphs who cared for the young Dionysus.
They were sent mad by Hera but before they could harm the child
he was rescued by Hermes.

Limnaea: the Limnaea were
nymphs that dwelt in lakes or marshes and were also known as
Limnetes or Limnegenes. It is also a surname of several
divinities who were believed either to have sprung from a lake,
or had their temples near a lake. Instances are, Dionysus at Athens, and Artemis

Maliades: the protectors of flocks and of fruit-trees.
The same name is also given to the nymphs of the district of the
Malians on the river Spercheius.

Meliades: the same as the Maliades, or nymphs of the
district of Melis, near Trachis. The nymphs that nursed Zeus are likewise called Meliae.

Nysaian: nymphs from the area of Nysa who, another tradition states, brought up the
infant god Dionysus.

Naiades: the Naiades were the nymphs of fresh water,
whether of rivers, lakes, brooks, or wells,

Pleiades: The Pleiades were
the sisters of the Hyades, and seven in number, six of whom are
described as visible, and the seventh as invisible. Some call the
seventh Sterope, and relate that she
became invisible from shame, because she alone among her sisters
had had intercourse with a mortal man

Homer further describes them as presiding over game,
accompanying Artemis, dancing with
her, weaving in their grottoes purple garments, and kindly
watching over the fate of mortals.

Men offer up sacrifices either to them alone, or in
conjunction with other gods, such as Hermes.

All nymphs, whose number is almost infinite, may be divided
into two great classes.

The first class embraces those who must be regarded as a kind
of inferior divinities, recognised in the worship of nature. The
early Greeks saw in all the phenomena of ordinary nature some
manifestation of the deity; springs, rivers, grottoes, trees, and
mountains, all seemed to them fraught with life and all were only
the visible embodiments of so many divine agents.

The salutary and beneficent powers of nature were thus
personified, and regarded as so many divinities and the
sensations produced on man in the contemplation of nature, such
as awe, terror, joy, delight, were ascribed to the agency of the
various divinities of nature.

The second class of nymphs are personifications of tribes,
races, and states, such as Gyrene, and many others.

The nymphs of the first class must again be sub­divided
into various species, according to the different parts of nature
of which they are the representatives.

But the nymphs of fresh water, whether of rivers, lakes,
brooks, or wells, are also designated by the general name
Naiades, though they have in addition their specific names.

Even the rivers of the lower regions are described as having
their nymphs; hence, Nymphae infernae paludis and Avernales. (
Metamorphoses
V, Fasti
by Ovid)

Many of these presided over waters or springs which were
believed to inspire those that drank of them, and hence the
nymphs themselves were thought to be endowed with prophetic or
oracular power, and to inspire men with the same, and to confer
upon them the gift of poetry.

Their powers, however, vary with those of the springs over
which they preside; some were thus regarded as having the power
of restoring sick persons to health and as water is necessary to
feed all vegetation as well as all living beings, the water
nymphs were also worshipped along with Dionysus and Demeter as giving life and blessings to all
created beings, and this attribute is expressed by a variety of
epithets.

As their influence was thus exercised in all departments of
nature, they frequently appear in connection with higher
divinities, as, for example, with Apollo, the prophetic god and the protector of
herds and flocks (Argonautica);
with Artemis, the huntress and the
protectress of game, for she herself was originally an Arcadian
nymph (Argonautica); with Hermes, the fructifying god of flocks; with
Dionysus; with Pan, the Seileni and
Satyrs, whom they join in their
Bacchic revels and dances.

Although they were generally benevolent, they could become
dangerous to those mortals whom they distinguished with their
favours. They sometimes dragged mortals down into the depths of
the waters. This was the fate of Hermaphroditus, victim of the nymph
Salmacis. A similar fate overtook
Hylas, the handsome companion of Heracles. When the ship of the Argonauts reached the coasts of the Troad
Hylas was sent to shore in search of water. As it happened he
discovered a fountain. but the nymphs of the place were so
charmed by his beauty that they carried him to the depths of
their watery abode, and in spite of the cries of Heracles which
made the shores reverberate with the name Hylas. the young man
was never seen again.

2. Nymphs of mountains and grottoes, Oreads, are also called
by names derived from the particular mountains they inhabited.
The Napaeae, the Auloniads, the Hylaeorae and the Alsaeids
haunted the woods and valleys.

Among the nymphs who followed Hera there was an Oread named
Echo who, every time that Zeus paid court to some nymph, would distract
Hera's attention with her chattering
and singing. When Hera discovered this she deprived Echo of the
gift of speech, condemning her to repeat only the last syllable
of words spoken in her presence.

Now shortly afterwards Echo fell in love with a young Thespian
named Narcissus. Unable to declare
her love she was spurned by him and went to hide her grief in
solitary caverns. She died of a broken heart. her bones turned
into stone, and all that was left of her was the echo of her
vioce. Her unhappy end was also attributed to the wrath of Pan
who was unable to win her love and had her torn to pieces by
shepherds. Gaea received her mortal
remains but even in death she retained her voice.

As for Narcissus, the gods punished him for having spurned
Echo by making him fall in love with his own image. The
soothsayer Teiresias had predicted that Narcissus would live only
until the moment he saw himself. One day when he was leaning over
the limpid waters of a fountain Narcissus caught sight of his own
reflection in the water. He conceived so lively a passion for
this phantom that nothing could tear him away from it, and he
died there

3. Nymphs of forests, groves, and glens, were believed
sometimes to appear to and frighten solitary travellers.

4. Nymphs of trees, were believed to die together with the
trees which had been their abode, and with which they had come
into existence. They are designated by the names Dryads, Nymphs
of the Oak, Meliads Nymphs of the Ash-trees, Hamadryads
tree-Nymphs and Heleads Nymphs of the Fen.

They seem to be of Arcadian origin, and never appear together
with any of the great gods.

Crowned with oak-leaves, sometimes armed with an axe to punish
outrages against the trees which they guarded. they would dance
around the oaks which were sacred to them. Certain of their
number, the Hamadryads, were still more closely united with trees
of which, it was said, they formed an integral part.

The second class of nymphs, who were connected with certain
races or localities usually have a name derived from the places
with which they are associated, as Nysiades, Dodonides, Lemniae.
(Fasti
by Ovid. Apollodorus
iii)

The sacrifices offered to nymphs usually consisted of goats,
lambs, milk, and oil, but never of wine. They were worshipped and
honoured with sanctuaries in many parts of Greece, especially
near springs, groves, and grottoes, as, for example, near a
spring at Cyrtone, in Attica, at Olympia, at Megara, between
Sicyon and Phlius and other places.

Nymphs are represented in works of art as beautiful maidens,
either quite naked or only half-covered. Later poets sometimes
describe them as having sea-coloured hair. ( Metamorphoses
by Ovid V)